Mayor’s office rushed casino vote, strategized with OLG: documents

David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen01.21.2013

The OLG’s chairman is Paul Godfrey, left, who is also chief executive of Postmedia Network Inc., which owns the Citizen. He arises once in the documents, with Pastore and Arpin arranging for him and Mayor Jim Watson, right, to speak on the phone a week after the key committee vote but the day before city council finally signed off with a 19-5 vote. It’s not clear what they talked about.Julie Oliver
/ Ottawa Citizen

Saad Bashir (Director of Economic Development, City of Ottawa) during the debate on an Ottawa Casino at the Ottawa City Council meeting at City Hall in Ottawa on Oct. 10, 2012.Garth Gullekson
/ Ottawa Citizen

Mayor Jim Watson during the debate on an Ottawa Casino at the Ottawa City Council meeting at City Hall in Ottawa on Oct. 10, 2012.Garth Gullekson
/ Ottawa Citizen

The OLG’s chairman is Paul Godfrey, left, who is also chief executive of Postmedia Network Inc., which owns the Citizen. He arises once in the documents, with Pastore and Arpin arranging for him and Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, right, to speak on the phone a week after the key committee vote but the day before city council finally signed off with a 19-5 vote. It’s not clear what they talked about.Julie Oliver
/ Ottawa Citizen

Mayor Jim Watson during the Ottawa City Council meeting at City Hall in Ottawa on Oct. 10, 2012.
/ Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — The rush to approve the idea of a new casino for Ottawa was entirely self-imposed, driven by Mayor Jim Watson and his staff, newly released documents show.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which wants the new casino, was prepared to give the city time for a full debate, according to correspondence released to the Citizen under access-to-information legislation. Much of correspondence is between Serge Arpin, Watson’s chief of staff, and Giacomo “Jake” Pastore, OLG’s manager of community and municipal relations.

Arpin sent Pastore advance copies of documents before they were shared with city councillors, arranged a meeting with agencies such as the Ottawa tourism authority and the chamber of commerce, and planned private discussions before a key finance committee meeting “to ensure accuracy in messages.” Some of the documents were cut from the package for reasons allowed by the law, including to keep secrets important for negotiations.

The gambling agency wants to contract private casino operators to build new gambling halls across Ontario to increase its take for the provincial government’s benefit. Watson has been keen on the idea, hoping to keep Ottawa-area gamblers dropping their money in Ontario rather than at the Quebec government’s casino in Gatineau.

What’s new, though, is the evidence of how closely Watson’s office co-ordinated its sales job with OLG before a key vote by city council’s finance committee in October.

That vote, inviting OLG to find someone to build a casino here and present its plans for a final city council decision, took place without a report on the health or economic effects; consultations with the public consisted of a chance for people to make presentations to the committee on one evening. Councillors complained repeatedly that the process seemed rushed and that they didn’t have enough information to vote responsibly.

Toronto is still debating whether to say yes to the idea amid multiple neighbourhood consultations that have attracted hundreds of people. The correspondence between Arpin and Pastore indicates Ottawa could have done the same.

Instead, Ottawa asked OLG what it would like. One of the few exchanges not between Arpin and Pastore was on Sept. 12, three weeks before the finance committee vote and two weeks before the city shared its intentions publicly, and involved the city’s economic-development director Saad Bashir and OLG vice-president Larry Flynn.

“It was good to speak with you last week,” Bashir wrote to Flynn. “You had mentioned that you would be able to share some details on the public consultation expectations of OLG from a municipality. Is there any information or even examples of such consultations done in the past that you/Jake are able to provide?”

Flynn responded by saying that Pastore would take the question up, but there’s no indication in the documents that he did. He might not have known he was supposed to — Bashir mistyped his email address so he wasn’t copied directly on the exchange.

Two weeks later, the city formally released its staff report recommending that councillors tell OLG to go ahead, along with a memo from Watson urging the same. Arpin sent Pastore an advance copy of that and a news release on the subject, asking that they not be made public. “Will confirm when they have been released to Council and media,” Arpin wrote.

“This is fantastic Serge,” Pastore responded. “When can I share it with other municipalities?”

Then, just after all that material was out and the vote scheduled, Arpin asked Pastore whether OLG thought there was a rush.

“Cannot find a hard deadline in OLG docs for requirement of cities to signal ‘interest in becoming a host facility,’” Arpin wrote to Pastore on Sept. 25. Could Pastore direct him to a written-down deadline somewhere?

“There is no document that outlines that Serge as we have been telling municipalities to let OLG know before we issue our RFPQ (request for pre-qualification quote),” Pastore wrote back, referring to the process of devising a shortlist of bidders. OLG’s chief executive Rod Phillips “gave Kingston until end of the year,” he added.

The two co-operated in other ways. In early September, Pastore sent Arpin a copy of a resolution from Hamilton city council urging OLG to find a way to keep working with a local horse-racing track. Ottawa has a similar challenge with the Rideau Carleton Raceway, which has benefitted from a share of the money from hundreds of OLG slot machines it hosts.

Later, Arpin sent Pastore an advance copy of a motion Watson would present, asking that OLG give the Rideau Carleton a privileged place on the shortlist of potential new casino sites. “NOT being released today,” Arpin noted. “For OLG eyes only at this point in time.”

Arpin and Pastore worked even more closely together as the finance committee meeting approached. Phillips, OLG’s top boss, was to give a presentation making OLG’s case and they collaborated on scheduling that, which isn’t unusual.

Pastore also asked for Arpin’s help arranging meetings for Phillips with the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, Ottawa Tourism and “Ottawa Economic Development” (it’s not clear whether that meant the city’s internal department or Invest Ottawa, the nominally independent business group). And he asked for a separate meeting with the public-health department.

“If we could secure a room at City Hall where we can camp for the afternoon from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., it would be great,” Pastore wrote.

Arpin’s response, if there was one, isn’t included in the documents, but the heads of all the economic-development groups lined up at the microphone at the finance committee meeting to speak in favour of the casino and Pastore wrote later to thank Arpin for all the arrangements he’d made.

Pastore also wanted to know what Arpin thought of Phillips’s appearance: “What was your impression of the responses and presentation?” he asked by email while the meeting was still going on. “We thought it went fine.”

The OLG’s chairman is Paul Godfrey, who is also chief executive of Postmedia Network Inc., which owns the Citizen. He arises once in the documents, with Pastore and Arpin arranging for him and Watson to speak on the phone a week after the key committee vote but the day before city council finally signed off with a 19-5 vote. It’s not clear what they talked about.

OLG is still constructing its shortlist of bidders. Would-be casino operators’ general proposals are due March 7, and then a few will be asked for specifics after the agency narrows the list.

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